RespireRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (RSPI)

[enemem]

The issues you raise are the basis for my skepticism about ampakines in SA. Physiologically, it is an incredibly complicated condition, influenced by lung volume (affected by obesity), adipose tissue (a consequence of obesity), carotid body feedback gain, central chemosensation feedback gain, strength/weakness of adaptive responses in the cerebral vasculature, and efficacy of efferent drive to the various muscle groups involved with airway patency.

This doesn't mean that I think ampakines will be useless; I think it's likely that ampakines will improve drive to motoneurons, which in turn will improve airway patency, but all the other pieces of this homeostatic regulatory circuit need to be affected in a coordinated manner. What matters here is not whether ampakines will work, but whether they will generate a positive trend in the incredibly slow, expensive, and inconclusive clinical trial that corx has undertaken.

I remain long, but I've come to see that corx's business model is not really viable. Their indication-based outlicencing strategy is problematic, since once a compound is outlicenced for one indication, it becomes much less attractive as an outlicencing candidate for other indications; it can't generate enough money from an outlicencing deal to shepherd another compound to late stage, and limited funds also preclude developing compounds in parallel, which eats away at patent life. Basically, I don't think that they can generate the funds that will allow them to enter a regime of sustained profitability.